Users first: why quality design is crucial

Read In

The impact of design-driven companies and the
acquisitions of design firms over the last few years are just two
indicators of the importance of design and user experience.The
recent eventUXAlive, held
earlier this month in Istanbul, Turkey may be an indicator that
design values are changing in the region as well.

Organized byUserspotsaround
the theme “experience everywhere,” UXAlive brought together 25
local and international professionals for two days and kicked off
discussions about design and user experience.

Others, like former visual UX designer Jeff Romi and
head of digital at twofour54
Mehmet Dogan, focused on more specific topics. In a presentation
about “humor-driven design,” Jeff Romi noted that “humor is
an emotional catalyst for better interactions.” Mehmet Dogan talked
about the role of “friction” in tailoring more engaging and
desirable experiences.

The conference also included a number of
non-designer speakers likeYalcin Pembecioglu(cofounder and executive director of digital marketing
resource Bigumigu), who talked about marketing and communication
principles with examples from advertisements. Jambu Palaniappan
(Uber regional manager for Eastern Europe, Middle East &
Africa) said that “Uber seamlessly overlaps offline everyday life
with the ease and creativity of mobile.”

UXAlive was an opportunity to discuss design and user
experience.

Some others professed their own visions about
design, like Humberto Matas ofDesignit, who
discussed the field of service design.

“Ultimately, the experience is your product,”
Matas said to the businessmen and women gathered. “Basically, what
we try to do is to have a holistic approach to the client needs,”
he told Wamda later. “ Instead of understanding a client in small
and different chunks served from different parts of the company, we
try to do the holistic perspective and build a narrative that is
coherent and delivers the experience that the service designers
want to deliver.”

Indeed, without a holistic approach that
oversees the customer experience entirely, it is up to each
department to adjust their individual touch points and try to
elevate the entire experience of the journey. The problem is that
no single department can address the entire customer journey, and
even when individual departments focus on delivering the best
experience they can, there’s no way to tell what happens before or
after their individual touch point along the way.

Such
an application of service design almost seems like the next
competitive edge for startups and corporates - one that is more
challenging to implement than UX. This is because it requires
businesses to break down silos and create a new coordination across
departments that’ll deliver the best possible experience. Unlike
established corporations, this might be a huge opportunity for
startups who are building their organizations from
scratch.